international commerce

Question

How do I setup my search to not show international items? Thanks

eburtonlab · Answer

eBay provides an "Item location" filter which can limit your search results to items that the seller indicates ship from a specific location.

As a buyer if you want all your searches to be limited to a "US only" or "North America" Item location by default, there is a way to accomplish this.

If you use the eBay app, you can do this by first enabling "Lockable Filters" in the Filter Customize menu. Then, select an item location filter option and you should see a lock icon appear. Tap the lock icon so it turns blue and locks to set that as your default search option. From then, all your searches should include that filter option until you unlock or change it.

Using a browser, the lockable filter option is not available. But if you use certain desktop browsers, you may be able to use a third party browser add-on called "eBay item location -- my country only" which allows you to override eBay's "default" item location setting.

Note that when searching, if a US-only search finds few results, eBay may provide additional results after the formal search results, showing additional items available from international sellers. If you are scrolling quickly, you may miss the delineation between the two sections.

And of course, not all sellers ship from the Item location they specify as they should.

Probably the best way to deal with sellers that misrepresent item location is to avoid them. The "US only" item location filter selects items that are listed as being in the United States; however, as you have seen, not every seller that lists items in the US ships from the US as they should.

Before ordering you should check the estimated delivery dates -- that is a good indication of where items actually ship from. Also, going to a seller's profile page or feedback page will tell you where the seller's account was registered. Although some overseas sellers do use US warehouses to ship their items (and some registered US-sellers may employ overseas drop-shippers), if a seller is registered overseas, that raises the likelihood of an item shipping from outside the US, particularly for multiple quantity commodity items. Checking seller feedback will often reveal if there are problems with long shipping times, canceled orders or other supply chain warning signs.